


Twelve years later.

by allan_schrieber



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gerry lives AU, Gertrude and Adelard have brief mentions, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Gore, Other, avatar Gerard Keay, i make the canon now, no beta we kayak like Tim Stoker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25580125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allan_schrieber/pseuds/allan_schrieber
Summary: A little character study, looking into Mary’s “death” and how Gerry lived with that! (Avatar Gerry/Gerry lives au)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Twelve years later.

**Author's Note:**

> No proofreading, no real edits, let’s go! I meant to post this on the 28th, but now it’s past midnight! Oops. Criticism/comments welcomed!!!

There was something so appealing about a cigarette.

The fire used to light it, the bitter smoke it left behind. All good, all...unique. But the real appeal sat within the burn. The aching, acrid heat it left in your lungs after the first few drags.

It was funny really. Gerard couldn’t quite remember when he first took up smoking. Before legal age, that much was sure. It became a habit, a comfortable release that he couldn’t really get in any other way at the time. 

‘Those things will kill you, you know.’ Gertrude used to say. Cause cancer this, ruin your lungs that. She repeated herself like a broken record. It *was* funny (really!)—she’d always take a cigarette if offered one, yet she seemed abhorred by those who smoked them. In hindsight, Gerry realised that at some point she’d...stopped saying it. By the time they’d reached America, she’d stopped mentioning the things entirely. It was funny, really. Maybe...when she’d mentioned getting back from America, telling Gerry things *after* America...she already knew. Yeah. That’s what that glint in her eye had meant. He wasn’t sure if he knew that, or Knew that, but it wasn’t information he particularly enjoyed. It made him feel cold, sent a shiver down his spine.

Prolonged thinking of Gertrude Robinson had a strange affect on Gerard. Some days it’d earn a fond laugh, a few decent memories he’d chipped away from her over the years. Other days it left a tightness in his chest, a burning sensation went shooting through him from the large expanses of angry scarring across his back like hot knives. He missed having a complete set of tattoos. But really...hah, in some fucked way it really was an eye for an eye. Though...that didn’t help much. Before Gertrude had bound him to…*that* book, he’d been ready to die. He knew that, he’d been ready for that since...before Diego Molina had been a bit adventurous with his patron’s gift. He couldn’t remember America, but he knew he must’ve been afraid. The...his summon in *the* book showed he was afraid. He didn’t like that too much.

The skin book—the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead, to give it its real name—had been a fixture in his life for as long as he could remember. Until 1955, it’d been in possession of one Dr. Tellison, but a young girl by the name of Mary Keay had decided she didn’t deserve it anymore. The book was strange, really. Most pages were written in Sanskrit, with some English peppered in where knowledge of other languages had failed. But as an individual Leitner, it was strange..unique. The book had to be added to by man, by rather gory ends if he was being frank, and that...made it powerful. That’s not to say it was a pleasant book. No...it hurt. Being a page in one of Leitner’s shitty little books *hurt*. It made you ache all over, like...well, let’s put it like this; Gerard now understood what the Distortion had meant when they said to have your who torn bloody from your what, and something stitched in its place was one of the most painful experiences a man—an avatar could experience. 

What Gerry didn’t often share was the fact that his flat actually had two bedrooms. The rooms were on opposite ends of the flat, and that was, quite frankly, perfect for what the man needed. Don’t keep your business where you sleep, unless you want it to kill you. That’s what Adelard had said once. It rang surprisingly true. No matter how many protective marks he placed over the door, repelling charms and Christ knows what else Gerard used around the rest of his house, nothing settled him more than Knowing everything that had given him the life he lived was safely tucked away in that spare room. 

Yet...Gerard had felt uneasy of late. Yes...that was the term. Unsettled, really. The 21st had rolled around. He didn’t get out of bed. It was raining that day, his head pounded like there were bailiffs on the other side trying to force entry. He felt a strange...sadness, Knowing Eric’s page had been burnt today, despite it being years ago. Gerry had never known his father. He’d been a page in the catalogue too.

Then, in what seemed like a blink, it was the 28th. The 28th of July...one of the worst days of his life had been on the 28th of July, 2008. That was the day...he didn’t like thinking about it. Everything felt too much if he dwelled upon the topic too long. The gaze of the Eye felt piercing, it took his breath away. The void in his chest seemed to open up so large it could’ve swallowed him from the inside out. He felt a compulsion to scrub his hands until they nearly bled, as if touched by the Crawling Rot. 

Hah, the Eye. 

The entity Mary had *hated* with such a burning passion.

The Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You.

Anyone worth their salt in Gerry’s line of work knew it by some name. He felt as if he’d always known the entities, some more personally than others. Perhaps it was due to the forced studies he’d undergone, since he was able to read a book. Gerard really did have a shite memory sometimes.

Gerard began serving the Eye in his late teen years, and by the time he began his employment with Gertrude Robinson, he was already a fully fledged avatar. 

Serving Beholding truly had a lot of pros, that *mostly* outweighed the cons. Mostly. The one thing he couldn’t get used to was being compelled, the insatiable need to *know* that manifested itself in his gut as a burning ache. But being compelled? Your body moving and acting without you dictating such actions, without you wholly consenting? It felt wrong. It felt...wrong, yes...not nice. No...no not nice. Even though it...tingled. 

The tingling often bled into the burning pull of anxiety, squirming around under his skin. It was almost...swivelling. Comparable to the sensation you get under your eyelids when you move your eyes too much. Being watched by the Eye felt like all your paranoia manifesting at once, and taking a seat behind you. 

Gerry wouldn’t call himself paranoid necessarily. No...no, he just...cautious. His mother had been paranoid, she’d had genuine paranoia, running right along beside her sociopathy and fuck knows what else. That being said...you can’t grow up around a paranoid narcissist, and not...develop tendencies. Gerard learnt that the hard way. Routinely checking and keeping an inventory on his spare room, not to mention the mundane in his home. Deep down the avatar knew if something were wrong he’d Know.

Yet...paranoia hadn’t brought him to the door of the room today. Although...it wasn’t Compulsion either. Until his scarred hand rested upon the cold doorknob of his spare room, he didn’t even notice what was happening. The...skin book. Right. His mind had wandered...and he’d decided to finally collect Eric’s tape and look upon the catalogue. Eric deserved this, he deserved to have the last piece of him on this Earth kept somewhere safe. So, that’s exactly what happened.

Gerard knew where to look for the book without thinking. He’d often toyed with it, trying to decide whether to give it to the archives. But...if it was with him, he knew nobody would fall to a fate like his family had.

The catalogue sat heavy in Gerry’s aching hands, making him feel a little unclean at the simple severity of such an object. 

After his father's tape had been deposited in the box, which sat snugly in the bottom of his wardrobe, Gerry made his way to the kitchen. Setting the book down on the small wooden table, he put the kettle on. No point suffering without a good cuppa, he justified. It was quite frankly funny. Until he worked for Gertrude he’d despised tea with all his being, yet...when made correctly? It tasted rather nice, he’d reluctantly admit.

Minutes later he sat cross-legged at the kitchen table, hands wrapped firmly around a steaming mug of milky tea, gaze fixed on the mottled leather-bound book. He almost didn’t want to blink, because he had the most unsettling feeling it’d blink back. It wouldn’t, of course. A book connected to the End was unlikely to do that. Although, as his paint-chipped fingernails lightly scratched over the book’s cover, he could feel the familiar burn of his own Eyes across his skin. Gaze dropping down, he saw miniscule movements from the pupils on his hand as the focus of his eyes changed spasmodically, until he blinked a while longer and finally saw with far more clarity. 

A beat of silence passed as Gerard pondered, slender fingers twisting around one of his earrings, as the other began producing and quelling the flames of his special lighter. 

He blinked. Two eyes first, the third followed in a delayed motion. When present, it never seemed to enjoy total—if not momentary—blindness. 

The unease in his stomach reared its ugly head as his shaking hand sat flat against the leather, which left a numbing cool against his flesh. Another moment passed as he procrastinated, rolling the sleeves of his hoodie up. If the hoodie touched the book he’d have to burn it, although he couldn’t explain why.

Pushing his tea to the side, Gerry drew the book closer, thumbing the cover before gently peeling it open. The name emblazoned on the first page made an anger simmer deep inside him. A stangnent, old rage. ‘From the library of Jurgen Leitner.’ G-d damn, wretched old bastard. Should’ve taken his chance with that guy. Too late now, he supposed as he shrugged a little and turned the page. 

As he read the first page, being almost fluent in Sanskrit, he felt...well, uncomfortable yes, but...more than that. He felt...guilty, almost. Gerard understood what it felt like being stuck in the catalogue, and he certainly couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be bound to the book for what /must’ve/ been...hundreds of years by now. Thoughtlessly, an apology bubbled from his lips. Softly spoken and clumsily worded, yet an apology all the same. I’m sorry for your fate, he said. Please forgive me for keeping you hear, you deserve a rest. Surprising even himself, he meant every word he said. Perhaps that was due to the increased sensation of prickling paranoia simmering under his skin. He knew what it meant to have your skin buzz like cicadas were setting the very fibre of your being aflame. 

Gerry continued in this manner; reading a page, apologising, wishing them well and then moving the fuck(!) on. 

At least...until he reached the first, clumsily removed page-gap. His throat constricted, all eyes suddenly on the space. He Knew. The final resting place of Eric Delano—at least...unless you accept Gertrude’s wastepaper basket. Gerry sure as hell didn’t.

Gently he ran his thumb down the empty spot, the cold book suddenly radiating an angry heat. It almost made him...buzz with an uncertain energy. He felt a pang of...what was that...guilt? Yeah, that tracked. Guilt...for what? He took a moment to consider. Making Eric stay? Making him...leave the safety of his job? And in the process, what, making him a useless piece of meat in the grand scheme of her ‘dynasty’? Yeah, yeah...that was definitely enough to be guilty for. 

With the book spread flat, he could feel the papery bindings against the spine if he carefully ran the pad of his finger down the gap. A thought crossed his mind, and he couldn’t help a laugh. Imagine...if he got a paper cut from that. The final fuck you he deserved! Although he knew Eric wasn’t petty like that. Sad, angry, scared? Yeah, sure. But spiteful? Nah. Adelard and Gertrude had told him that he’d always smiled and been a shoulder to cry on, even when that shoulder was broken by ‘an accident around the shop.’

Hesitant to continue, Gerard leant over to his jacket which lay precariously spread over the chair to his left, and pulled out a box of cigarettes and his lucky lighter. After a moment of watching the flames tumble and squirm together, he lit the cigarette and emptied his hands once more, taking a few puffs to steel himself, as his free hand aimlessly flipped through the pages once more. As he did so, between apologies, his mind wandered to whether or not the book knew it was in danger the moment he opened his zippo. He really hoped so. 

The space where Mary Keay’s page once sat was a strange one. It was empty, yes, but it’d been removed with almost...a surgical precision. There were faint scratch marks where it’d been...completely cleaned of the fleshy page. The whole thing invoked a sensation that presented as a sharp, acrid clinical white. Mary’s page...what a fuckin’ trip that was. The memory of his mother in the book made his skin crawl, his hands twitch as if blood was dropping in small spatters upon them. It left a chlorine taste in his mouth, and the rusty smell of blood in his nose. The smell of blood...it was awful. He’d always hated it, since he was a child, but he tolerated it. But...after *that* day, over a decade ago today, actually, he couldn’t stand it. It made him want to heave at times. The smell of blood always seemed to hang thick like a veil in the air, and it’d hit you all at once, almost knocking you off your feet.

That blood smell had hung thick in the shop on that July day. It’d been early afternoon when he’d begun the hike up the stairs into Pinhole Books. The streets below were bustling in just the right way, so he’d slipped through without being particularly noticed. Steeling himself before he walked back through the door, he’d expected a torrent of complaints, demands and fuck knows what else. Maybe even a slap. It’d be easier than another helping of verbal abuse he reasoned. Yet...when he opened the door, all he heard was...silence, really. A thick, sickly silence sat like wool all around Gerry, bristling against him in just the wrong way. His footsteps had quickened at the intense feeling that someone was watching him, ignoring how his sore joints throbbed. And then...it hit him. All at once, like someone had shoved a sheet over his head and stuffed his senses with cotton wool. That iron laced scent smothering the usual smell of the shop. With deft movements he’d entered his mother’s study, expecting another corpse to deal with (which he really didn’t want to do.) But...what he saw wasn’t that. No, no what he saw was...Mary. Her face was deathly and smeared with blood, the red substance coated what looked like fuckin’ everything in that office. The desk, the chair, the walls, and Mary. Every inch of Mary was covered in blood that leaked silently from her torso, from her back, Christ even from her scalp. Like a poor imitation of a butcher shop pig. In front of her sat empty packets of...Gerard’s pain medication, his migraine medication and...he couldn’t distinguish the rest. But he Knew they were all empty. Every single one, and there was a glass of water spilled onto the bloody mess of a desk. He walked closer, trying to grab her, trying to...see if this was...real. With glazed eyes she’d looked up from the slice of skin she’d been writing on, and...grinned. Glazed eyes had locked on her son’s and she’d asked—no, no *pleaded* that he ‘help her finish this.’ Her blood caked hands had grabbed the hands of *her Gerard*, and she, for the first time in her life, truly begged. Mary Keay did not beg.

After that, Gerry could distantly remember running. He ran, slipped in a pool of blood, and then ran faster, coated in the substance. It didn’t show too badly on his black clothes, yet he felt it writhing against his skin like something awful. And then he found himself in the cafe he often went to to clear his head—and then he was in the bathroom, scrubbing his hands, his arms, and pushing his knee back into place as a throbbing pain set in—then he remembered coffee so scalding it was numbing—then...police. A court trial. Press. (“Mister Keay. Do you plead guilty, or not guilty?” “Not guilty, your honour.” The press box and jury gasped.) Next—he..next was—

The heat of his cigarette burning down to his fingertips bought Gerard back to the room. Back to present day, and the book in front of him. Not his mother twelve years ago. And now? His biggest concern was the fact his eyeliner had seemingly ran and his good jeans had ash all over them. 

He didn’t bother turning the next page, or to the next gap. He knew the next one—his own. His stay in the catalogue was as shit as it sounded, he mused through sniffles stubbed out on a tissue he found in his pocket. *Heh...smudged makeup. How trad goth.*

The twilight had seeped into the small flat during the time the avatar had been lost in his own mind, and it felt...cold. The whole flat had a strange chill to it. With a shaking hand he reached for the full mug of tea he’d made early and took a sip, learning it was cold. Great! Just what he wanted. Huffing, Gerry closed the catalogue and took a few more breaths, finding his centre once more. He took the book back to where it belonged with no reluctancy at all, and washed his hands twice after, trying to remove that feeling of caked-on dirtiness. After a moment of pressing his face against the cool mirror of his bathroom, he gathered a plan; make another drink and roll a cigarette. Yeah, sounded good. Just what he needed after this. His eyes were slowly simmering down, although he still felt far too jittery. It’d pass.

Gerry wasn’t so sure he’d grown much since Mary’s death in 2008. But hey! At least he’d learnt to like tea, he supposed.

**Author's Note:**

> Well! I hope that was tolerable! Thanks for reading this far 💕  
> Add me on tumblr (@hezekiah-wakelys)!


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